For Briones, even hint of conflict is risky

The knives are coming out — and not to carve any Thanksgiving turkeys.

Six months before City Council elections, District 8 candidate Ron Nirenberg is swiping at his opponent, Rolando Briones, who runs a civil engineering firm.

“When a person whose primary income is derived from city contracts decides to run for City Council, there will always be questions,” Nirenberg wrote in an emailed statement. “I trust (Rolando) Briones will do the right thing and disclose the details of his contracts with the city and any potential conflicts that may arise from his dealings.”

Briones, who holds two city contracts, is quick to counter that his firm, Briones Consulting & Engineering Ltd., derives 80 percent of its work from clients outside San Antonio. But Nirenberg, associate general manager of Trinity University's KRTU-FM, is correct that his opponent's solicitation of work from the city raises questions — and the reason is Briones' timing.

A good analogy is the 2009 campaign of District 9 Councilwoman Elisa Chan.

Chan also runs an engineering firm, Unitech Consulting Engineers Inc. In 2009, her opponents attacked her for holding two city contracts worth nearly $1 million.

(City Council candidates are permitted to hold — and solicit — city contracts. If elected, they can finish their work, but they can't bid on additional city business.)

On Monday, I asked Chan how she navigated the politically thorny territory as a candidate. She recalled making a judgment call: After deciding to run for City Council in May 2008, she stopped seeking city contracts.

“I did not seek a contract during my campaign because I knew that could pose some unnecessary controversy,” Chan said. “I didn't want that to happen during my campaign.”

She added, “That's for the candidate to decide.”

Briones was not constrained by such concerns.

He decided to seek office in May, hauling in nearly $53,000 by the end of June.

After deciding to run, Briones sought and won a piece of the city's $596 million bond program. In October, the city awarded his firm a contract to design a $6.5 million drainage project at Menger Creek. (His contract covers about 10 percent of the project; the city is still negotiating a fee.)

Also, Briones in September agreed to renew a city contract for on-call civil engineering services. His firm first won the contract in August 2011, earning $337,000 in a year.

Since renewing, Briones' firm has earned $10,000; the renewed contract extends through August 2013.

Briones says he felt compelled to pursue the bond project, even after becoming a candidate.

“I had already had agreements in place with subconsultants and team members to pursue that work,” he told me.

(Those “agreements,” however, were informal, not contractual.)

Briones also promises to “give back all my city contracts” should he win the District 8 seat. As mentioned earlier, that's not required — and actually not ideal.

The design of the drainage project, for instance, begins in early 2013 and would extend well beyond the election.

“It'll take about a year to design,” says Deputy City Manager Peter Zanoni, adding that although contractors are sometimes replaced, “that's not preferred.”

Rather than promising to drop his contracts if he wins, Briones could have taken a page from Chan and forestalled Nirenberg's “questions” by forgoing work with the city after he became a candidate.

The most obvious question: Why risk the controversy? Appearances of conflicts of interest — even if mere smoke — can still cloud a reputation.